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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23716993">This is our ever after</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/kurukapologist/pseuds/kurukapologist'>kurukapologist</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Other</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 21:48:37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,063</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23716993</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/kurukapologist/pseuds/kurukapologist</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Life is a fairytale. Once upon a time ended long ago.</p><p>Or: she was the universe, back when life was as small and insignificant and so were his crimes.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>31</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>This is our ever after</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Please just <em>listen </em>to me,” and he’s on his knees. Begging. This is not easy, this is not fun, he would never do this if he could. She’s not laughing.</p><p>Neither of them laugh, anymore.</p><p>It’s funny, almost, at least it would be if he could remember what humour felt like. There is something hard and cold in her eyes, the part of the Doctor that has always raged and fought. The part which, especially now, screams-</p><p>
  <em>You are lesser.</em>
</p><p>Maybe it’s true. Maybe he’s an idiot and a fool, maybe he was never anything more than an ant under reality’s boot.</p><p>The Doctor is not the boot, not yet, and that is a small comfort.</p><hr/><p>“Are you happy? Here? I know you don’t love humans.”</p><p>He shrugs. “Could be worse.”</p><p>Could be five fucking thousand times better, too. She gives him a knowing-ish glance, wise and not particularly clever all at once. “Be nice if we could all live happily ever after for once.”</p><p>What a fool. “We’ve had our happily. Millennia ago.”</p><p>“Once upon a time, the Master was still busy ruining the magic.”</p><p>He smirks. “You’ve made a mistake. This, I think, is our ever after.”</p><p>“Hell of a long after.”</p><p>“So what if it is?” he asks. “I don’t give a damn.”</p><p>And nor, he suspects, does she.</p><hr/><p>A few years ago - so very long ago, it feels - he’d given the Doctor a phone number. Now, the don’t talk, besides snide remarks and insults.</p><p>It’s nothing like the easy banter of, oh, a few weeks before. The Doctor treats him as if he almost... doesn’t exist.</p><p>Except he does, and there is another unfortunate truth: he is real. He is not nothing.</p><p>That does not mean he needs to visible, and he remember saying to the Doctor, idly: “Call me when you’re broken.”</p><p>She’s broken now, and sometimes he listens to the voicemails, stares at that stubborn accept/deny screen, and knows ignoring her is another part of his hearts he’ll never get back.</p><hr/><p>He hears empty promises and shallow sobs, imagines the Doctor curling up in the middle of a too-side bed or crumpling against paper-thin walls, and can’t decide whether the sudden sting is amusement or pain.</p><p>He’s never really been able to tell the difference, and that is probably half the reason they’re in this situation, isn’t it?</p><p>He holds an empty bottle of wine that morning, clings to it as if there is nothing else left, and tries to remember whether he drank it or if it’s been empty all along.</p><hr/><p>He buys her a rose, because that is twisted in ways that do not affect him. He never knew the chip shop girl, but the Doctor did, and any opportunity to stab back is good.</p><p>He leaves a camera on the Tardis, and watches in delight and horror as the Doctor tears the petals off the flower, screws them up with her hand, clenches the barbs with an iron grip until she’s bleeding and not-crying, eyes showing that same refusal to admit she cares.</p><p>When Companion 2 walks in - names, what names? - he smirks. The Doctor pretends nothing has happened, says she's just cut herself, even though her hands are drenched and sticky and her throat is raw with held-back sobs.</p><p>“Come here,” says Companion 3, and the Doctor melts into them, but she glares at the camera the whole time.</p><p>Clever girl.</p><hr/><p>This time, he’s on the Tardis. The Doctor offers him some kind of sweet - typical - and tea so disgusting he nearly smashes the cup. She extends a hand - literally.</p><p>“Stay.”</p><p>He shakes his head, and tried to remember what words are. “You are - you... we can’t.”</p><p>“Why not? Nobody cares this time. Nobody even knows we’re here.”</p><p>“Charming, thanks,” he mutters. “Really appreciate the sentiment.”</p><p>But he takes the Doctor’s hand anyway, feels the biting rush of minds merging, and it is so <em>good</em>, so much <em>easier </em>and <em>happier </em>that he nearly cries.</p><p><em>How do you live like this?</em> the Doctor’s voice hisses. Immediately he is aware of what is happening, like suddenly realising an insect is on your arm. He hurls the Doctor out, forcefully, and doesn’t answer the question.</p><p>He stands there, still terrified. The Doctor, as he’d expected, leaves. Coward.</p><p>“The answer, Doctor?” He pauses again. No, she’s definitely gone. “I don’t want to.”</p><hr/><p>There is a deep-seated feeling of wrongness, a bizarreness he cannot force into the usual mindless streaming of words. Speaking, it seems, is like sieving water; gone before you can react. The Doctor moved closer to him. Gentle. Hopeful.</p><p>“Daffodil?” she asks. “I thought-”</p><p>“Yeah, I bet you did.”</p><p>They are far too near to each other now, and when the Doctor pulls him into a kiss with characteristic clumsiness and burning kindness, he panics.</p><p>Again. The Doctor knows better than to push him, and pulls away softly. “It’s okay.”</p><p>He’s hyperventilating. He can’t see. “It’s okay,” she repeats.</p><p>“You’re so - so -”</p><p>“Sh, I’m here.”</p><p>Like that’s any comfort.</p><hr/><p>“It’s beautiful, don’t your think?” the Doctor asks. A star.</p><p>“It’ll burn out one day.”</p><p>“Everything ends, what’s new?”</p><p>“Very little,” he says. “Apart from this body, and you.”</p><p>Always her, of course. Of course. “Why do you have to see the bad in everything?”</p><p>“It annoys you.” Which is easier than admitting that then the good can’t hurt him, that he enjoys hurting the Doctor, throwing any hope to the wind and her life in her face.</p><p>“What am I to you? Do you even care?” And that, that is it. He shoves the Doctor right away from him, sees her skid across the room, does not so much as look back. The Tardis leads him nowhere, only further into dark corridors and labyrinthine pathways.</p><p>The Master hisses, and his hands screech against the wall. “Of course I care, you fucking idiot. You are the most important thing in my <em>life!</em>”</p><p>
  <em>It’s you, it’s you, it’s all for you-</em>
</p><p>Another annoying song plays from the Tardis. Rather pointed lyrics, he thinks.</p><p>“You were the universe.”</p><p>
  <em>-heaven is a place on Earth with you, tell me all the things you wanna do-</em>
</p><p>“But now? Oh, gods, I don’t know.”</p><p>
  <em>-they say that the world was built for two, only worth living if somebody is loving you-</em>
</p><p>“You were,” he says softly. “I swear, you were.”</p><p> </p>
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